


All That Is After

by DottyDot



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Happy Ending, Post S8, Post-Canon, Romance, past Jonerys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:54:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24558745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DottyDot/pseuds/DottyDot
Summary: "Do you betray everyone you love?"
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 178
Kudos: 236





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Don't judge either character too harshly. They're allowed to be hurt and angry with each other. I wanted them to have the chance to express it, process it, and recover.

The first time he returned they spoke only once before he had ridden into the night, swearing never to return.

"I loved her" Jon insisted, as if Sansa’s silence was an accusation, as if she had not welcomed him home with a smile, as if his cloak was not strewn across her knee as she mended the marks of his time in the far north.

Her needle paused, her fingers tensing at his words before she continued, determined to ignore him. Her pet, a fuzzy grey kitten, rose from its cushion at her feet, stalked to the fireplace where Ghost stretched, and slapped the direwolf across the nose. He opened an eye, and the cat flattened its ears and hissed. Ghost grunted, but instead of snarling, stood, stretched his weary paws before him, then slowly retreated to the darkest corner of the room.

The kitten proudly returned to her throne, and the log on the fire snapped, falling into the ashes as it burned through.

“I loved her,” again, Sansa’s silence fueling his anger.

The sewing was set aside, and she looked at him as she had so often before. She was telling him she would retake Winterfell without him, she was telling him that Ramsay would lay a trap for him, she was asking him why he bent the knee.

“I loved her.” It was his mantra, the one he said over and over as he journeyed the North, when he couldn’t sleep, when he couldn’t ride or walk because he saw nothing before him but smoke and ash, and then blood, as it trickled from her mouth.

Again, “I loved her,” each repetition angrier –and more feeble— than the last.

He thought she would not speak, that she would be ashamed of what she had done, but something burned in her eyes, a look he did not recognize, and with a voice as measured as her stitches, "Do you betray everyone you love?"

He left without a goodbye.

* * *

The second time he returned, he told himself he was too young to feel the weight of forever, that a year was enough, that the second was interminable only because the first had been so very long, but before the third ended, he made his way to Winterfell again. He told himself it was to visit the crypts, to pray before the heart tree, but the reason was the woman who wounded him as no other.

The fire was warm; Sansa was warmer, smiling as if he had not fled before, a coward in the night.

The kitten was now a sleek cat, curled into a ball, sleeping on its own chair. Ghost rested his nose near it for a moment, staring intently, and while the cat’s tail twitched in irritation, it would not open his eyes. Eventually Ghost huffed and turned away.

Again, Jon answered an unspoken question, "I can't stay here. Not after what happened."

Sansa had not insisted on mending any of his possessions as she had before, instead she sat beside him, making pretty stitches on pretty cloth no doubt to be worn while she sat on her throne and ruled, prettily.

"Is breaking my oath the same as killing you, then?" She asked, not faltering in her work.

He shook his head. He did not want to speak of it. He could never speak of it. Sansa was assured of her feelings, her thoughts, her words. Jon knew his own less and less.

Sansa never would let him be. "What of the trust you broke with me? What of our brother—"

“But he wasn’t _our_ brother, was he?"

"Is that...is that what this is? You're angry because you learned you're the rightful heir to the Iron Throne instead of our half-brother?” Her incredulity made him feel a fool. But he was not a boy who sulked in corners. He was a man, he had been king. Still, he could not meet her eyes.

Sansa had no patience for that. "Tell me there is blood on my hands, Jon. Tell me that I may as well have ridden the dragon myself. Tell me I usurped you, stole your life and your love and your future from you. Tell me I am power hungry--that I learned my lessons too well. Tell me that you can never forgive the great wrong I did by breaking an oath you _tricked_ me into making.”

He could barely hear her over his own agitation. His speechlessness did not give her pause.

“But then you tell me why betraying our people allows you to stand in judgment of me. Why fucking your own aunt and loving her until the end doesn't make you worse.”

He wanted to disappear into the wild again. Why had he returned? What was he looking for? He wanted to live the rest of his life without the burden of these accusations, because how could he dare to even think them? Maybe that was why he came back, why he was compelled to return, because he needed Sansa to ask them; he needed her to answer them.

“You tell me why your loyalty and forgiveness and love goes to a mad woman instead of—"

"Me! I led her to the edge! She wanted to be loved! All she needed was love—and I didn't—I couldn't—" He stopped, panting. Somehow, he was always reduced to this when with her.

"You loved her enough to betray us. You loved her enough to lie. You loved her enough to go to war for her and watch innocent children die."

" _But I loved you more_."

It was no gentle silence that crept over them. It was an avalanche, their wordless fury roared into the room, overwhelming any rational thought, everything lost to him but her eyes, his racing heart.

His hands were shaking, and he could not find the words to say what he felt coursing—scorching—through him. He had thought to die of fire once, a flame had scarred his hand, but now he burned from within, and he would say what he meant, words he had never allowed himself to think flooding his tongue—

Sansa blinked, stood, turned away. Too much was said, too little was understood.

He wondered if she cried; he hadn’t. The last time tears fell on his face was when he had murdered a woman he thought he had loved but was a stranger to him. He cradled her body as she died, the same body that he held when she smiled, when he kissed her, even after she had threatened Sansa.

"Are we anything more than our betrayals?" she asked.

"Are we to always deny ourselves our loves?”

" _I did_."

And he saw that look again, the one that he put away, that he refused to recognize, the one that felt like fingers in his hair, lips on his jaw. The one that turned his heart to stone to the pleas of a woman who wanted him to live with her; the look that made him want to live, even when he thought himself ready to die. It had driven him to his feet to keep fighting, to kill again and again, even to kill his queen.

"Aye. It was easy enough for you to do when it was a choice between me or a crown” he said, bitter, even now. 

He never had the conscious thought that he wanted her to slap him, but when Sansa took a step toward him, looking at him for the first time as if she was indeed her mother’s daughter, a thrill ran through him: _there it is_. And he wanted her to do it, to punish him for it all, for every wrong he had committed against the North, against her, for his first wrong, the foundation of all the others: existing.

Would that he had died with his mother, with Ygritte, with Dany. Would that he had died with Robb, fallen on the battlefield next to Rickon. Everything he touched was destroyed. The Wall fell, even Winterfell had burned. Arya was gone, Bran was gone, all that was left to him was here, her. Everything that he had known about himself broken, scattered until he could no longer gather it.

He wanted her to reject him, threaten him, to give him something he could recognize instead of this agonized waiting between where they were and where they were going, not knowing the starting point, incapable of seeing the destination. He wanted her to end his suffering; he wanted her.

A quick succession of realizations that he could not disentangle, and he waited, falling into himself, into something much more deadly than the trampling feet of men, than the frozen lake beyond the Wall, than silver hair—

"Jon.”

He could not bear it.

“Jon.”

Nothing could kill him, but this would end him.

“ _Jon_." She gathered him into her arms.

If he had ever known his mother, he thinks she would have held him this way.

But Sansa was no more that than anything else to him. She had carefully avoided every offering of trust; he had just as meticulously dodged every request to be trusting. No, she was not _his_ in any way. 

They were swaying, her hands stroked his back, then his hair, with so much care, and he added it to all that he took from her, without being able to offer anything in return. He did not know what to call her, how to love her, for she touched him as no one had, moved him as no one ever had, and he knew to his shame, that a brother’s love, a cousin’s love, did not describe what he felt.

There was an urgency in his desire for her to trust him, a need unlike any craving he had yet to feel. He had the unreasonable notion that respect from her would wipe away every look of distrust he received from another auburn Stark, by a different set of blue eyes. 

He had shoved a dagger into the chest of a woman who loved him, a woman he had told himself that he loved, but it was the way Sansa flinched from his words that cut into his heart.

He told himself he could live, one day, but only if she didn't hate him. 

He told himself she could live her life regardless of him existing at all. 

* * *

He stayed for two more days. They did not argue; she looked, he looked away. He made no promises to her or himself. But he held her before he rode out the gates, leaving a kiss on her cheek, carrying his pain strapped tightly to his chest.


	2. Chapter 2

The years he spent away from her before were nothing compared to how time passed now. Instead of the pain fading, it grew. The ache fed on all that had passed between them, memories became more consuming rather than dimming. Instead of distance stretching the thread between them until it broke, he felt it press into his skin more insistently. Each step, no matter in which direction, only reminded him of how tightly bound he was to her, her eyes, her words, her pain.

He told himself that this was for the best, that they could only recover from all that had happened if they stopped picking at the wounds, but every step away from Winterfell, away from her, was a new abrasion. The wind sounded like her sighs, the rain was her tears, those tears that filled her eyes and never fell. The silence was hers as well, heavy with every accusation she’d made—all the ones she hadn’t.

He was desperate to alleviate her pain; he felt it as his own, for it was a shared bond, how they hurt, how they hurt each other. He told himself that he left for _her_ , but the truth of it, the truth was despair. He had put the anguish in her eyes, the suffering in her words, the fear in her face. And even so, there was that look, that look that moved him, forced him to live when he was ready to die, and die, and die again.

Daylight scraped at his skin, the night chipped at his mind, and he told himself it wasn’t real, that she didn’t mean it, that she looked at everyone—but he knew it wasn’t so. He wanted to see himself as she saw him, a hero still, despite her rage. It was almost as if—worth, as if she thought he had been worth it all—but, he hadn’t been. Not in the end.

But it wasn’t the end.

There was time, no army of the dead, no enemy in the South. He’d stood at the end of his life so many times it was strange to be at a new beginning. What was he to do with it? Maybe that was what frightened him the most. For the first time, in a long time, he was free to choose. Choose where he went, what he did, and he did not want to admit to himself what it was that he wanted, but the truth of it surrounded him regardless. He knew it in the rivulets of melting snow, followed them as they struggled to forge their own path until they joined, rolled over rocks and sticks together, eventually meeting a stream, and then they roared with one voice, washing over boulders and fallen trees, not searching for a route, making their own. 

He felt it in the furs of his cloak, when they brushed his cheek, “ _I made this for you_.” He saw it in his campfire, when he’d forget that Sansa wasn’t there, taking a sip of his ale, and coughing, each time, as if she always thought _this_ time it would be different, although it never was. The realization that he was alone quickly followed by his own traitorous self whispering the same lie, “ _It could be different—this time_.” But he’d tried and each time—he thought of her holding him, of kissing her cheek, her eyes as she watched him leave. They’d been streamlets when they found each other, running away from, then to, then with.

His hands shook, as they did now. His eye twitched, as it did now. He missed her, as he did now—always—even when he was with her. They’d been so uncomfortably merged he’d thought when their paths diverged they’d—but they didn’t; he couldn’t.

“ _Where will we go?_ ”

There was no diverting the water back into their separate courses. They’d failed –tried– but failed to flow seamlessly together, and yet, for all their failures, they were permanently mingled. He could not filter her from his mind; he’d left traces of himself with her. If only they’d found a way, togeth—forbidden thought. One he should not entertain.

One that refused to leave him.

He thought of it when he threw a stone to frighten the birds into rising from the foliage, took aim, and brought one down. When he admired the hawks perched on heights, when they took flight and glided effortlessly above, and he remembered the talons in his flesh. He’d been the hunter and the hunted, at times, both, but he could never tell which he was when it came to Sansa. To her, with her, he was neither. Although, what he was—what _they_ were, he had never been able to say.

Yet, no matter how far he traveled, even beyond the Wall, the thought was still there. He carried it with him, worse, it escaped his hand and surrounded him. It was in the call of every bird, the caw of the crows, the song of the snowbirds, the hoot of the owls from the depths of the night.

Harsh, hopeful, hidden.

He counted off days slowly, bending and breaking them like the ends of branches, marking his way back home, but he persisted in riding further North. He would not bend.

A moon’s turn, and still, he continued, willing the thread to snap, to finally let him be. If it wouldn’t, he wished it would cut through him, anything, if only he could leave it behind. But hope, like the signs of Spring, emerged against his will, against the dense blanket of snow, and while he refused to whistle the tune of the birds, they sang to him. When he saw a blossom, and knew how Sansa would caress the petals, press her nose into it, he turned his eyes away, but they emerged before him, one after another regardless. His campfire warmed him as her smile, her cutting remarks, so he banished the thought. But Sansa had never listened to him; her memory followed suit. He was not alone, no matter that it had been days upon days since he’d seen another soul.

Four.

Four full moons before Jon gave in, took his last breath of the pure Northern air, and turned South.

* * *

She was busy when he came home, locked in a room with a few of the Northern Lords whose voices rose and fell enough that Jon knew it was not an entirely pleasant discussion. He ran his finger along the cool stones of the walls, making his way to his room. How often had he dreamed of being here when he had been at the Wall? When he had gone South? How hard he tried to convince himself to not want, but he had persisted in wanting. Worse, he had wanted it less, in comparison to how much he found himself wanting what he was far less worthy of taking.

He opened his chamber door, stopping on the threshold. The room had been clean and empty the last time and the time before that, but this time when he entered, there were logs waiting in the fireplace, candles ready on the mantle, linens on the bed. It shouldn’t surprise him that Sansa knew he would return before he had decided to. That she saw his struggle more clearly than he did. It was exhilarating, frustrating, and pleasing, all at once. Her cat was there, stretched across the windowsill, and he wondered for one ridiculous moment if Sansa had decided to give her pet a room of its own, with the comforts typically afforded to human guests.

“You’re here.”

He had ventured several steps into the room, forgetting to close the door behind him, and the words startled him, as if he hadn’t just ridden miles upon miles to hear her voice again.

She stood, posed in the doorway as if she were the subject of a painting who had awoken at long last but had yet to escape the frame. He took too long in studying her, causing some uncertainty he had never seen before to slip into her smile.

“I couldn’t stay away.”

The cat leapt from the windowsill, stretched, her claws coming out as she extended her paws and dragged them back towards herself. She rubbed her head against Sansa’s skirts until Sansa picked her up, holding the wretch in her arms like a babe. “I have to speak to a few more lords this afternoon—the dispute has yet to be settled. We can eat together tonight, in my solar?”

Jon nodded dumbly, uncertainty creeping in. He had not retraced his steps; he wasn’t anywhere he had been before. There were no dragons circling above, no enemies demanding their heads, no war marching towards them. It frightened him, now that he was not ruled by anger, it frightened him to be here, but before he could think better of her offer, she had left him.

* * *

They said nothing of consequence while they ate. A few words about Bran, fewer about Arya, Ghost nipped at the cat –Nèvè, she called it— and Sansa scolded him for it, until Jon opened the door, ordering the direwolf from the room.

Instead of following him, Ghost went to Sansa, placed his head on her lap, rubbing his jaw along her thigh until she scratched his ears, “You filthy beast” she lowered her head to his and rubbed her red braid along his white fur as if she were a wolf herself. She sniffed, “Is that blood? You smell horrible.” Ghost, who never made a sound, somehow seemed to fill the room with his satisfaction at receiving so much of Sansa’s attention, expressing his pleasure in nearly silent whimpers.

Jon had forgotten Sansa had spent months with Ghost while he was away, that he had made Tormund take him North instead of leaving him in Winterfell with Sansa. “He must have missed you.” He said, returning to his seat.

“No, you just missed your treats.” Ghost licked up the side of Sansa’s face while she gagged. “I have rarely smelled anything as foul as your breath,” and yet she smiled, took food from her own plate to share with the pet, for in Sansa’s hands, that’s what he became.

“I don’t think he’ll take to bows as Lady—” Jon scrubbed at his neck, embarrassed to ruin a moment of such contentment.

Sansa sighed, held Ghost’s ears and gently shook his face, scrunching up her own nose as she did, then gently pushed him away. “If we ban all painful topics we will have nothing to speak of at all.”

He couldn’t deny it. “I don’t know how long—if I’m permitted—”

“Bran was merely appeasing the Unsullied. In the North you are free. You know that. I sent a raven after my coronation.”

“Aye, aye, you did. I just—”

“This is your home. Whether you stay or go. We took Winterfell back together. It is as much yours as mine. Always.”

It should have been a comfort, it should have given him joy to hear the words, but how could he accept such a gift? And from the hand of the person he’d—

“You gave me my freedom, Jon,” as if she could hear his thoughts.

“And then I took it from you,” accusing himself for her preemptively, his shoulders curled up, nearly to his ears, as if they could protect him from words he was sure would come.

“Yes, you took it—”

He waited for the blow, for the pain that always came when they spoke, but Sansa’s tone—she sighed, as if he had hurt her merely by not understanding. And her sigh, like her every action in his presence, overwhelmed him. It frustrated him that he could not catch hold of whatever it was he was meant to hold. He could not touch it, but it overwhelmed him each time he was in her presence. It surrounded him, moved him, whatever this was he was meant to know.

“—but you first gave it to me, nearly died on the battlefield to win it, placed a kingdom in my hands when you left to—”

“You won the battle.” It pained him to say it, the words like filth in his throat. It was another defeat, another time when he hadn’t listened. “You told me not to go—" He forced himself to look at her, those blue eyes that he—

“You gave it to me, you took my hand and agreed to go to war for me, and yes, you gave it away, but you returned it. Even though it meant—” She glanced at her feet, incapable of saying it, “You gave it back to me. You gave us all our freedom, and no Northerner will ever forget it. _I_ have never forgotten.”

He could hardly meet her eyes, her words, a salve he could not accept. It was easier to endure the wound than the balm. And yet, he did. He allowed her to see him, nodded, bearing it just the same.

She smiled, the faintest upturn of her lips, pleased, within reason. He trembled, wanted to reach out his hand and touch her, but that was too much. She could never take his hand again, not after everything. All the same, it was different. This time, their silence flowed in like water, lapping at them in a calm way, a safe way. He didn’t touch her, but he could feel—a strange comfort, an acceptance, it was peace, and more, something he hadn’t tasted for so long.

He left her solar and went to the Wolfswood, stepped off his horse to walk with Ghost padding alongside him. He walked for hours, the wind in the trees just loud enough to drown out thoughts that might torture him otherwise. His cloak felt too heavy, too warm as he strode down paths he’d ridden as a boy, flanked by brothers who had left him before he even knew what they were to him. But no, brothers they were, brothers they remained. Arya was his sister, although her sister was no sister to him.

Even thinking it was a sin. His cloak was choking him. He couldn’t catch his breath. He knelt, gasping. How could he dare think—feel—want. He was a dragon after all, doomed by his blood to take, betray, kill. He knew it. He knew he should have stayed away, protected Sansa one last time—from himself.

Ghost whined, licked his face, and he heard the words so clearly that for a moment he was a boy again, leaving for the Wall. “ _You’ve my blood_.”

He was a once king, returning to the people he’d betrayed, “ _You’re a Greyjoy, and you’re a Stark_.”

He was terrified of a queen he’d help place on the throne, “ _You have to choose now_.”

He’d chosen, and he only wished he’d chosen better before, before when—but he hadn’t had any good choices, did he? Trapped on an island, desperate to go home, desperate enough to risk his life beyond the Wall, desperate enough to do _anything_ it took to secure and keep Dany’s loyalty. He felt her eyes on him, those beautiful eyes, and what he’d given—kept giving—keeping them focused on him.

He thought of Sansa’s trust, and how he should have lost it, but never had.

“ _You take it_.”

“ _You’re good at this, you know._ ”

“ _They lost their king_.”

Ghost nuzzled his hand, and he calmed his breathing as he stroked his head. He moved over to a tree, leaned against it, patted his leg until the direwolf plopped down next to him, warming him, and he drew his cloak across himself, the leather straps pressing into his chest. He ran his finger over them—a little worse for wear—until they traced the Stark sigil, the one that Sansa’s fingers had pressed into existence.

“ _You are to me_.”

Stark, no matter what other blood mingled in his veins.

Stark, no matter how many times he denied it.

Stark, no matter the cost.

“ _You gave it back to me_.”

It was strange to feel love.


	3. Chapter 3

When he returned to Winterfell the next afternoon, he wondered if Sansa would be waiting, if she’d noticed his absence, but she wasn’t, _of course_ she hadn’t. He felt foolish for thinking it. A maid came to his room, offered to bring him food, and with a glance over his disheveled state, a bath.

The comforts of Winterfell were a stone, sharpening the edge of his guilt, the guilt he’d tethered himself to, even though he’d told himself it was Sansa who offered it. Even with the fine weapon so near to cutting him, there was peace in his rooms, in the sounds so new, so familiar. It shouldn’t feel right to be home, after everything, and the knowledge that it shouldn’t chafed at him. But the bathwater was warm, so he bathed. The food was good, so he ate. He took no wine or ale, his head swam enough as it was, enough that he ventured to Sansa’s solar unsummoned.

She asked no questions, registered no surprise at his presence, simply sat with her needlework, the fire snapping the silence time and again, a silence that Sansa made no attempt to break. He looked at her profile, her eyes focused on her embroidery, ignoring him without intending to. Years, years since they’d lived together in Winterfell, and he didn’t think she’d changed. She was queen, he was nothing, and yet there was no great distinction between them. She wore no crown, her hair was braided much the same way it had always been, she still covered herself in a thick dark dress as if she wished to be a living Winterfell.

Ghost hadn’t joined them, but Nèvè steadily glared at him, kneading at Sansa’s leg before curling into a ball beside her, and sleeping. The thought that it should be a child resting his head on her lap, that she should be knitting a blanket for a babe, a cap for a downy head—the image of it striking him so forcibly that Jon was confounded in all the time he’d spent away he’d never even wondered—he hadn’t even thought to ask—he’d been so lost within himself he’d never—“Are you still married to him?”

“ _What?_ ”

Jon was just as startled as Sansa by his question. He’d not spoken of her marriages with her. Hadn’t asked about Ramsay, listened only to her few words of respect for Tyrion, hadn’t wanted to hear of how they had touched her, what they had done to her. It was easiest to believe that it was for her sake, although now, he was not so sure. He cleared his throat. There was no extracting himself now, “Tyrion.”

“Oh, no. We had it annulled it was never—” She had a curious look on her face, one he couldn't recognize, he just knew he was missing another thing he was meant to know. She looked back at her sewing, fumbled her needle, pulled it through the cloth, exclaimed as she realized she’d knotted the thread. A sigh of frustration before she continued, “Bran saw to it. We were too—I was too worried about food and rebuilding. I hadn't even thought to do anything about it, but apparently, his six kingdoms aren’t enough to occupy him.”

“You've not—no one—” he stopped, hoping she would save him from himself, but she didn't. “You haven’t found someone—to marry—since?”

She was picking at her stitches, trying to pull the thread back through the cloth, to mend the mistake. Her fingers tugged the thread unnecessarily harshly. “I'm a queen in my own right. What could induce me to marry?”

“An heir?” His cheeks burned, damn them.

Green thread encircled her finger, wrapped casually around it, as her hands lay still for a moment, breathing suddenly requiring all of her attention. “Bran can't have children. The lords will choose their next leader. Perhaps it isn't the worst way. The North might be persuaded to do the same. Or, I could choose someone myself. Groom a new ruler from a loyal house.”

“I didn't—what I meant was—a child. Wouldn't you want a child?”

Jon thought his cheeks a frustration, but Sansa’s flamed just as readily. “We've all made sacrifices.”

“You don't have to deny yourself—”

“In my experience, there is no greater threat to a queen then the men close to them. And although Tyrion—my betrothal to Joffrey was terrifying. My marriage to Ramsay worse than anything I can—” she swallowed, not wishing to speak of it. Her cheeks, so rosy before now pale. “I’m not denying myself—” very quietly, “I’m protecting myself.” She snipped the thread, licked the fresh end to rethread her needle. “What of you? I know you rarely returned to Castle Black. Surely—”

“No. How could—no.”

“Ah, so you can tell me not to deny myself, but _you_ —”

“I'm a man of the Night's Watch. I can't—”

“And I already reminded you, that isn’t true.

Jon’s arms slid along his legs until his elbows rested on his thighs. Suddenly his tongue was a weight he could barely move, but he must, to breathe, to be free at last, for wasn’t that why he’d returned? His hands spasmed, his mouth was dry, his eye began to twitch, but words rose up from deep within him, and he pushed them out, slowly, painfully, shamefully, “What I wanted—it’s always been wrong. I’ve always feared what I loved. Feared what it would do to me. Feared what I would do to it.” He had betrayed a woman he loved and seen her die, had killed another woman who loved him with his own hand— “I’ve always been a threat to those I love.”

She was perfectly still, and he knew she looked at him, but he could not look at her. “I loved Robb, but I was—I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know what my existence meant. I left, but then Ygritte. I loved her, and I used her. I knew—I _knew_ she would die if she—” and he could not finish the thought. “My brothers, the brothers of the Watch, they thought letting the Free Folk through the gate—” and again his voice failed him, so he trusted her to understand. “I become their enemy too. And Dany—I had a claim to the throne, the thing she wanted the most. I was a threat— _another_ Targaryen—when she’d built her life on being the last. I didn’t want—I didn’t want a throne, I only wanted to—” He was shaking, the truth too much to bear. “I always take, even when I don’t want to. Living, just surviving, meant taking. So, I took. I took from all of them. I betrayed them in different ways, and they died. Every one of them died.”

“You are not to blame. You never asked for any of this to happen. You refused to take what was within your right, tried to save—”

But he was lost to her, beyond the Wall, “ _you won’t betray me_.” In his room at Winterfell after they had won one battle and were on to the next, “ _I’ve never begged before_.” A boy again, “ _I’m the Lord of Winterfell_!” Ice, darkness, fire, each leading to blood. Yet, here he was again, still, in Winterfell, and the words he had hissed at another man now echoed back at him, “ _You don’t belong here_.”

Sansa’s fingers curled around his; his compulsively clasped them. Her hand was so small, and yet strong, the strongest thing he’d ever touched.

“Jon,” but he did not look at her, “Jon,” softly, but he could not bear to be seen, “ _Jon_ ,” a whisper, and finally, her face. “You were born. That is all. You cannot—a _child_ cannot bear the sins of his father. You cannot carry the wrongs of others on your shoulders. We can only carry our own. You have done wrong; I have done wrong. Oathbreakers, the pair of us. I was the cause of my aunt’s death too. Not by my hand” in response to his questioning face, “—but her husband. He murdered her because he loved me. All the Northerners and Free Folk who died to take back Winterfell so that we could save our family. Countless bodies lie behind us, but we cannot live standing over their graves. We did what we could, what we thought was right, and that is all that we can do.”

He nodded, attempted a smile.

Sansa succeeded with hers. “We are both cursed by the gods, I think. Doomed, why I do not know.”

He eyed her, she shrugged, “What I’ve loved has always betrayed me."

His confession escaped him before he could stop it, “The women who loved me wanted to kill me.”

It was an odd sort of game, but Sansa did not surrender, “The men who loved me wanted to use me.”

Her words hit him like arrows, cut into him like knives, trampled over him like the feet of panicking men, pulled him under like frigid waters. They had all used her. One after the other. Some less, some more maliciously. He had too, thoughtlessly. “I never meant to use you.”

Her smile disappeared, not realizing what her words would mean, “I know.”

“I wanted to protect you.”

“If there was one thing I knew to be true, it was that you would keep me safe. And you did. Ramsay, the Others, Cersei, dragons, you protected me from them all.”

“They all died, Sansa. They burn, keep burning, every night in my dreams.”

“I know. Our ghosts will never truly leave us, but I do not fear you, Jon. I trusted you more than I have ever trusted another man."

“Since—” he almost said ‘father,’ thought better of it, “your fa—”

“You brought me home.” Tears were in her eyes, but unlike the ones that never fell, these slipped down her cheeks, and rather than the pain he’d so often seen on her face, she smiled, “I’ve never trusted anyone more than you.”

“I'm sorry—” he rasped, “I’m sorry I wasn't worthy of it.”

“You were. You _are_.”

* * *

He woke the next morning in a stupor, no drink had ever affected him so. What he had said—spilling the words filled him with relief and regret. Sansa seemed to know his needs better than he did, and she let him be. Meals arrived in his room, and he waited, kept waiting, not knowing what for, perhaps only searching for the will to move. He’d not found the peace with his ghosts that Sansa created with hers. But then, she was innocent, he’d built on his guilt with every breath.

Eventually, Winterfell slept. The silence meant he could hear them, the voices of those who no longer could speak, so he wandered the halls he had rushed through as a child, allowing the memories to return, wishing they wouldn’t. He thought he could see Bran climbing a wall, hear Arya laughing as she escaped some dreaded task. Robb and Theon were only steps ahead of him, and Rickon’s small hands held onto his curls as his little feet kicked his ribs, goading him into moving faster. Jon fought the urge to flee again; the wilds called to him, told him he had fewer ghosts to face there—he stopped outside a room, one that he had rarely –never—visited before. A room where women and girls had chattered and sewn, that he had hurried by, no place for a bastard.

Now it was empty of them all, barren of laughter, only Sansa was there, sitting on a low stool, harp pressed against her shoulder, unbound hair falling over her face as she played, graced with the smallest sliver of moonlight, as if it deemed her, and her alone, worthy of illuminating. The beam of light caressed her hair, the roundness of her cheek, the sheen of her nightclothes. The room itself, and Jon, remained in darkness.

He was taut as the strings of the harp, shivered as Sansa ran her thumb down and back over them; she might as well have followed the line of his spine for how he felt it. Her fingers plucked memories from his mind. Ygritte's eyes closing as she died escaped him with a gasp. The night he had fled the Wall to join Robb receded from him. The Night King, raising the dead melted into the darkness. The army of men and women he had known facing him, calling him, was pierced by the music, floated up, and down from the path of light descended Dany, just as she had emerged from the sky when he thought all was lost. The disbelief in her eyes as she died. As if each note were his own life, Sansa touched it all, the cry of grief, the song of hope, the silence of fear. Fire filled his vision; music filled his soul.

He’d forgotten what it meant—the things other than struggle—he’d not realized how he’d missed it—music, and he slumped down to the floor, back to the wall just inside the door, stricken. With each strum of the harp strings Sansa summoned old horrors and soothed them. He wished he could cry, but his tears were burned away before they formed—it mattered not, the harp wept for him.

The cold stone at his feet and back reminded him of when he awoke after dying, cold, so cold he thought he’d never be warm again. His eyes closed, and he could feel it, death, climbing up his fingers, murmuring in his ear, and another voice, not louder, but one that nestled close, then seeped into him. _It’s time to stand up_.

He wondered if he would ever be free of it, or if he would simply have to live with his ghosts as Sansa said. _It’s time to stand up_.

Even as he feared it, he thought he breathed easier, that the rage and shame, the guilt, slowed in their feeding.

“Jon.”

He hadn’t realized Sansa had stopped playing, the soft sound of her skirts brushing along the stones creating its own kind of music hadn’t been louder than his thoughts, but she was standing before him, somehow unsurprised by his presence. “It’s time to stand up.”

He placed his hand in hers and as she tugged him to his feet, noticed for the first time the callouses on her fingers, much more refined than his, but her harp had left its mark just as his sword had left its. Her thumb swept across his knuckles.

Coming back to life felt better while holding her hand.


	4. Chapter 4

Jon did not leave his room at night again. Even when he would wake, even when he convinced himself he heard music— _especially_ then.

He stayed in his room, sleeping fitfully, instead of reliving his nightmares, he dreamt of Sansa. Of Sansa and her harp. Of Sansa in her white gown. Of how it puddled on the floor around her feet, of the gentle slide of the sleeve is it rose and fell on her arm as she played. Of her bare toes when she walked him back to his room. Of the feel of her hair against his cheek as she hugged him. Of how he so desperately did not want to let go of her that he stepped back, nearly tripping over his own feet, rasping out a goodnight, dodging into his room.

He did not leave his room at night, but he was with her all the same.

Daylight was better. Sansa was a queen in the daylight. Her dresses were wool, her shoulders were cloaked in fur, her feet obscured in sturdy boots, leather wrapped tightly around her waist. It saved him from looking too long, seeing too much. She didn’t move to the rhythm of her music but sat in a massive wooden chair during audiences with the Lords, not rigid, but resolute. No gentle moonglow in her hair, only a crown. No song pouring out of her fingers, only justice. He told himself _this_ was Sansa, less woman, all queen. In the daylight, he could almost convince himself it was true.

In the daylight, he was safe.

He wandered through Winterfell, and the ghosts did not accost him. There were too many of the living and they silenced the calls of the past. As winter faded, and survival became less difficult, the lords directed their attention elsewhere. The warmer spring breezes brought a breath of relief and squabbles. Castles needed to be rebuilt, new taxes levied, lands with no lords were coveted, and Sansa was preoccupied with it all. In her anxiety to serve her people she took on too much rather than too little.

Jon did not interfere; he did not even participate. He watched. He took note of her routine: she ate early, quickly, alone, met with her maester, several servants, and while she had no hand, there were two ladies and a lord who she often spoke with privately–a Mormont, Alys Karstark, and damn the man, Lord Glover.

In time he recognized her habits and expressions, could tell when his presence would be unwelcome, when he could approach but should remain silent, when she would be glad of the distraction. She stood on the wall when she wanted to be lost to her own thoughts, weighing decisions about matters he was not privy to. The wind billowed around her, and he thought the snowflakes vied to touch her cheeks. The more furiously she dissected a problem, the more fixed her body become, rooted to one spot until she found her mental bearing, and charted her course.

When she walked along the battlements, her hands fidgeting, fingers running along her chain, touching her belt, he knew that she would welcome his company, for she was attempting to force herself to stop thinking. And he would go to her, if he remembered, but sometimes he stood in the courtyard, watching her, until he recollected himself, and prayed to the gods no one had noticed his preoccupation. He had never had the time to learn a person so well since leaving Winterfell as a boy, too preoccupied with the threats of war and death and dying, too lost in deceiving and betraying, too intent on not being known to learn how to know.

Learning Sansa was a heady thing. He felt wise and more a fool than ever he felt before. He fell in step with her, walked with her silently if she had nothing to say, laughed when she had a good morning, detailed innocuous horrors about lords who he suspected by her tone tested her patience. He never spoke of Glover, but some of the others were declared half gnat by Jon for how they flitted around Sansa, requests and unsolicited advice spewing from their lips. She looked at him with slight surprise at the comparison, which led to him offering the suggestion that one curiously silent Lord was the misfortunate offspring of a wight, only to find himself blushing crimson when Sansa asked how _that_ could come to be. He recovered and suggested that rather, he was a goat under and enchantment, a thought so fanciful and wholly unlike him that Sansa looked at him as if _he_ were a talking goat.

“I think perhaps you had best find an occupation, Jon,” she laughed, tugging her cloak a little closer around herself. “Soon you will rival my girlish imaginings.”

He rubbed a hand along the railing, the melting snow vanishing quickly beneath the friction of his touch, avoiding her eyes.

"What did you do as Lord Commander?"  
  
"Much the same as you. Worried about food, fortifications, the future. Leading is more tedium than glory."  
  
"Do you miss it?"  
  
"The Wall is a cold mistress."  
  
“That's not what I meant.”  
  
“Seeing a job done is not as easy as issuing the command, but leading is not without its burdens." The seems of his gloves must have a tear, he could feel the dampness of the snow. “It never felt right, did it? Me being in command.”

The muscles around his eye spasmed as they occasionally did; he rubbed at the scar, squinting at the sunlight that now in Spring shown brighter than it ever had in the Summer before the war. Ready to speak of something else, he turned to her, only to see that look, the one he knew and did not understand.

“It felt right to me.”

He couldn’t look away, even though he felt the danger in looking, even with his breath leaving him in a slow exhale.

Only vaguely aware of the Maester approaching, Jon started when the man spoke, “We’ve had a raven from the quarry, Your Grace. They expect to send a ship within a fortnight.”

“Where it will the stone go?” He hadn’t meant to interrupt, but Jon spoke without thinking.

“That is not my decision, My Lord.”

“I’m not a—”

Sansa rolled her eyes, “Don’t start with all that, Jon. I have a list of holdfasts that are in need of repair, Maester Wolkan. I’ll look it over, but—”

“You must see to Winterfell first, Sansa. There’s work needed on the—”

“It will go to who has the greatest need. We haven’t—” Hesitation, a rush of words, “Would you oversee it, Jon?”

“I couldn’t.”

“You could.”

He flexed his hand, struggling to determine his response.

“If Jon chooses, he might advise you. Regardless, I will need time to review my notes.”

“Your Grace.” Wolkan bowed and toddled off.

“You might have given me warning. I don’t know if—”

“You left your kingdom in my hands without asking my leave, All I offered you were some rocks.”

Unwilling to smile, he shook his head. “Why must you torment me so?”

“I’m not delaying because I’m a child who doesn’t know what must be done.” Sansa continued on her way to her solar, so he followed. “We didn’t have the men. We lost so many in the rebellion, under the Boltons, in the Great War. Boys, women, girls, we lost them too. Rebuilding had to wait while we found food.”

“I noticed we eat a lot of soup.”

“It’s hot and fills our stomachs. Stretches out our meat supply. We’ve done the best we can, and it’s better than it might have been.”

“You’ve done more than anyone could expect.”

“You always see reason eventually” with a smile over her shoulder as she entered her solar.

A maid was setting a meal for two on the table. Nèvè meowed and rubbed up against Jon’s legs, nearly tripping him, and Ghost sighed from the corner, as if he alone had the right to importune humans, and was disappointed in the cat. He rested his nose on his paws, watching Sansa for any sign she meant to share her food with him.

“He came to my rooms this morning” Sansa explained, following Jon’s gaze.

“Thinks he belongs there.”

“I don’t mind.” Sansa began eating, disregarding her unfailing courtesy when it was just the two of them.

Jon tried to think of another absurdity to rival his earlier speculations, return them to pleasant topics, but Sansa spoke first.

“I broke my word because Tyrion was afraid of her.” She wasn’t looking at him, instead she casually dipped her spoon into her bowl for a delicate mouthful of soup. “I didn't do it to secure the North, I didn't do it because I wanted you to be king. I did it because even her hand was terrified. He was never fearful of Joffrey, but your queen had him worried for my life, for _his_ life. You don’t know what Joff—” she stopped, ran a finger along the rim of her bowl. Quietly, “You may have killed wights, but I have known monsters, and Tyrion was never afraid of him.”

Jon cleared his throat, tearing a chunk of brown bread from the loaf, dunking it into his soup. He was never much for manners, regardless of where he ate. “Arya said she was a killer,” he said around the food he stuffed in his mouth.

“She was.”

"You knew it before any of us,” breaking off another piece for another round of dunking.

“That's not true.”

His hand stopped in midair, the bread clutched in his fingers shedding just a few more crumbs as he tightened his grip.

Sansa stirred her soup with a spoon, far less interested in dinner than his reaction to her words, a gentle accusation, a necessary question. “You were afraid of her too.”

His back hit the support of his chair soundly, much harder than he had intended. Somehow, he had not anticipated this conversation; he had never known how to handle Sansa.

“You and Tyrion, always suggesting things, guiding her choices, ignoring my fears, silencing me. You weren’t afraid of wanting her, of what she did to you. You were afraid of her. You knew what she was.”

Her unfinished soup was set aside, and she pushed back from the table to pick up Nèvè who eyed him with the suspicion Jon always felt aimed at him. His every step seemed to confirm that he deserved it. He could leave. Sansa would be angry, yet still kind. He could walk away and come back, come back later and find something ridiculous to say to make her laugh. Even in her frustration, she was never cruel, and he knew she would allow him to escape because she had always allowed it before. 

But he had heard her play her harp; she had seen him listening.

He’d never meant to use her; he would not use her now. She deserved an answer, no matter how desperately he didn’t want to speak.

“I’ve been afraid ever since I died. I didn’t know why I lived again, and it didn’t seem too horrible to live, love, but it was wrong—she was wrong. We stepped onto the beach on Dragonstone—I was afraid, new fears, new threats, but she wanted me, almost as much as she wanted her throne, and it—I didn't _know_. Cersei was in the South, the Night King in the North, and the only chance—” His hands were shaking, he set his bread down, pressed his fingers against the polished table, closed his eyes, willing them to still. “I hoped. I hoped she would take her throne and be happy, but she was alone. She was alone, angry, afraid—”

Sansa’s pity surrounded him just as surely as her music had filled him. Not a sound, she so rarely had to speak for him to feel her care; it unnerved him. He forced himself to look her in the eye, a breath, “I’d promised to protect you, but I was afraid you were right, that no one could.”

“Littlefinger wanted me almost as much as he wanted to rule too.”

“Power does strange things to people.”

“No.”

Startled by her vehemence, Jon looked at her.

“Life does strange things to us. Power only allows us to do what we will to others. If Arya had a dragon, no children would be burned. It is not might that condemns us to wrong. It is not a crown that makes us a tyrant. We all have the madness and the goodness within us. We all must choose our own way—to watch the world burn because it first burned us or to put out the flame.”

Her honesty moved him. That she warred within herself to bend towards mercy rather than vindictiveness, that she could justify it if she chose but chose not to, it did not surprise him. He knew her enough. He nodded, “I knew she was volatile, so I was afraid. I was afraid for you."

“And I was afraid for you.”

Jon did not know why they had never said such a simple thing to each other, all those years ago. If he had spoken of his fears, Sansa would not have aggravated the dragon, although she would have certainly worked against her, and in the end, there had been no reasoning with Daenerys. He did not think things could have ended any other way. _Still_. “You should not have broken your promise.” It was difficult to spill the words gently. It still pained him, to be betrayed by Sansa, of all people, the one he had trusted the most.

Sansa did not seem offended, he almost thought she smiled. “You should not have knelt.” Her eyes were wide, challenging, but with a light he did not think would harm him.

He took a breath, “You should have trusted me.”

Now she did smile, his bluntness to her liking, “And you should have trusted me.” She stretched out her hand.

He took it, without hesitation, and he thought of Sansa, the woman who played the harp for her ghosts, and Sansa the Queen who changed Lords’ minds with a smile, and Sansa, the girl who came to him to be saved, although of the two of them, he had the greater need of saving. It did not seem so long ago that he had clasped her hand just so and agreed to go to war for her.

Her eyes were bright, a playful tilt of her head, and without the faintest hint of remorse, “Have you forgiven me then?”

“I haven't _not_ forgiven you.”

“Are you teasing me again?”

“You’re smiling.”

“You've never been funny, Jon.” She lifted Nèvè to hide her smile, but he saw it, and the delicate pink floating across her cheeks. He couldn’t stop himself from admiring it, her eyes, the arch of her brows, her pretty lips curling up in spite of her desire to be unmoved by him.

“No. That’s a charge that’s never been levelled at me.” He murmured his response, preoccupied with staring, and he felt that maybe he had never stopped staring at Sansa, not when they rode through the North, not when he became king, not when he returned with a new queen.

“You left me with no explanation, no hope, and when I realized that even Tyrion feared her—I did the only thing I thought might change things, might save you.”

Sansa was always thinking past his current struggle, into the future, a habit that he had never fully formed himself, never had the time too. How angry and bitter he had been as he took, and took, and took without offering. If he had only found the words, the courage, but fear had lived in his second life, every step seemed doomed to failure, crying out louder than any other voice in his ear, drowning out reason, silencing hope. How she had lived without losing hope he did not know.

"Jon.” Her smile had faded into something else, a hint of uncertainty, and she gently pulled her hand away to stroke the dratted cat. “You’re staring.”

  
The embarrassment he should feel for being caught simply refused to be summoned; he did not shamefully turn his eyes away. Unrepentant, he watched her, fascinated by the darker pink that filled her cheeks, her blatant determination to _not_ look at him, the momentary hesitation in her movement as she ran a finger down her pet’s spine, as if the weight of the moment slowed, then stilled her hands.

A sigh, followed by what was no doubt intended to be a reprimand, but the breathlessness of the word hallowed out any sting, “ _Jon_.”

“Sorry,” he said, without any sincerity at all. He stood, inclined his head, failing as he occasionally did to stop himself from his stilted courtesies, moved to the door, mumbled goodnight, paused before he left, “Can’t help it,” before he escaped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just 2 or 3 more chapters, I think! Thank you all so much for sticking with the story!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has some discussion of past suicide ideation--nothing graphic, but I wanted to warn you.

Sansa worked. Too many hours listening and talking and arguing and drawing up treaties. The North would never be the same, nothing in Westeros would. First the winter, then the fire, then starvation. And yet, the North faired better than it had any right to. Their queen had seen to that. He did not envy her this burden; he did not know how she managed.

He thought of the months he had spent in Dragonstone, of everything that Sansa must have done to prepare for Winter, and he tried to remember, remember if he had even noticed the food she provided for the armies, noticed that the bread and soup for the smallfolk, noticed that there were blankets and furs and fires enough for all. He thought of the wagons of supplies that had gone South to Kings Landing with their army, he had seen, and somehow not noticed.

As Lord Commander he had endured the headaches as well, the negotiations, the burden of procuring what he needed for his men. He had been so focused on the Night King he’d allowed Sansa to care for all of it and ate and drank without thought as to how it came to be. He thought of his return, the grand entrance he had made with a new queen, with armies, and dragons, how it must have felt like an invasion rather than salvation—how he had known the truth of it and expected everyone else to do as he determined, no thought to their own will at all. How he had taken their right to choose from them. How it must have looked to Arya and Sansa to see him escorting their conqueror around Winterfell as if he were a fool-in-love, who in their eyes, had surrendered everything their family had fought for, died for, and he, the man they claimed as their own even after it all, senseless to what he had done.

He avoided the meetings, he had never developed patience for the endless rounds of questions of who and what and why and when and where and how much and how often and how long. It was endless tedium to find ways to lead a horse to water, and then wait for it to drink rather than forcing it to. And he suspected that Sansa had not only the patience but had learned to instill the thirst in the horse until it sought out the water itself, eagerly drinking without ever knowing that it was her desire it was fulfilling, not its own.

He thought if there had been a time when everything was not at stake, if death was not at their door, perhaps he might have learned. Just as surely as he knew he didn’t deserve it, shouldn’t regret it, he longed, wished he’d had the chance of proving himself as capable as he thought he could have been if the dead hadn’t been coming, if dragons had not been born again.

Glover found him. He had studiously avoided the man, and yet there he was, standing over him. “Most of the lords are leaving, as am I.”

Jon got to his feet, leaving the sparring swords he’d been wiping down on his bench. Lord Glover offered him no courtesy, Jon followed suit.

“I would not risk my men in a doomed fight to take back the North, and I was wrong. I awaited your sentence, a sentence you chose not to deliver to me. I did not come to fight for the dragon, because you betrayed your people, the ones who named you their king by kneeling.”

“I saved the North before you ever hailed me as your king. I made decisions no one could stomach before too. I was betrayed for it. I was not surprised that it happened again.”

“You are fearless when it comes to fighting for your people’s lives, but she was the one who fought for our freedom. And she fought for you.”

“Aye, she did.”

“I didn’t like you when you were a bastard. I liked you less when I learned you were a Targaryen. I will never kneel to you again. But she is my queen, and I will serve her ‘till my last day.”

“She deserves it.”

“None of us will say a word against her, no matter what she decides to do with you.”

Jon did not want to understand the man, but it appeared he was understood all too well.

Glover chuckled without warmth, “Aye, I’ve seen the way you look at her. I suspect you’ve looked at her that way long before it was appropriate—indecent as it is now.”

Jon should have known. He could not jeopardize Sansa’s reign; he should go back to the North and—

The other man held up his hand. “If you run off without her say so, I’ll drag you back here myself. You’re done making decisions by yourself, Snow. You’ll do as she needs and wishes, or there will be worse than wights coming for you.”

Glover walked away, and Jon could not move. Not while Lord Glover called his men, not while they mounted their horses, not after the sounds of their party had receded in the distance. He stood, stricken with guilt.

Winterfell was never meant to be his, he was never meant to be king, and he was shamed, shamed by the wanting when he was a boy, shamed by his preoccupation as a man, shamed by his carelessness, thoughtlessness. He’d wandered into the godswood as he thought, and it hurt him to sit where he had so often seen his fa—uncle sit, knowing what he thought of himself could not compare to what his uncle would think of him. His head bent to his knees. He felt ill with his remorse, desperate to find a way to avoid his disgrace, but there was no avoiding it. He had to come back, and yet, there were so many memories, painful ones, happy ones, and each in turn filled him with shame.

“Do you sleep in the cradle of tree roots now?”

“Just resting my eyes” he muttered.

“Because you have had such a trying day.” He knew she was laughing at him, not mocking, teasing, and then he she was joining him, settling into the dirt and leaves herself, the brush of her fur along his arm as she sat next to him.

“Maybe a little less trying than yours.” It amazed him that ease had come to exist between them, even amongst all the pain.

“You’re welcome to join us.”

He had not anticipated that.

“Not that I would take your advice—”

He jerked his head up, and she was smiling, more teasing, also the truth.

“—but I learned from you. I learned from all my teachers, though I think that disconcerted you.”

“I should never have said you admired Cersei. I misspoke. That was—"

“No.” And now there was weariness instead of teasing in her face, the smile gone, a shake of the head. “You meant it. There is no playing games between us. You must speak the truth. I’ll start. I did admire her in way. I hated her, I wanted her dead, I feared she would succeed in having me killed, but I admired a woman who was handed over to a man, used and abused, but found a way to take some of the power she’d been denied. I admired her determination to rid the world of those who had harmed her family. Arya had the same ambition, and I admired that in her too. But Cersei was a horrible woman, and I lived for so long in terror that she would come for me—I would never want to become like her.”

“You never could.” Jon took her hand, gloved in a delicate grey, grey like a dove, like the heavy winter sky before it released the snow, “I saw her in the Dragonpit when we took a wight to show her, and I wanted to throw her down and take her head as she allowed them to take fa—your father’s. I have the same thirst for revenge as she.”

Sansa’s hand curled around his. “I wish we had talked then.”

“We didn’t have the time. I thought everything was a threat, that you would simply understand—”

“How could I know? You answered none of my—” She stopped, sighed, as if her anger was porridge that needed only a breath to cool it. “You can’t just declare something so and expect the Lords to accept it. It is their right to speak to us as they deem fit, our obligation to listen, to heed them if we can. We do not cow them into silence like—” She realized what she was about to say too late, began to pull her hands away, but he stopped her.

“You can say it. I know what she was. I had my fears before we ever left Dragonstone. Her temper was untamable, and she had that desire to seek retribution for wrongs against her family that we all had but did not understand what her family had done to us, to Westeros. I underestimated her rage. In the end, she was as dangerous—more so—than my worst fears.”

“I wish you had told me.”

A breeze rustled the leaves overhead, causing several to flutter down and land in the hot spring. Jon was so quiet she could hear the small noise as it settled, the low gurgle of the pond as it breathed its warmth into the air. Maybe, for all their forward steps and small touches, they had not moved so far from where they had started at all; Jon still spoke through silence, expected her to understand him without making the effort to be understood.

As if he could read her intent to leave him, to return to the castle and her duties, he laced their fingers together, and in a voice full of guilt and remorse, “You never called me a bastard.”

“None of us thought of you that way—”

“They did. Even Robb said it, but you didn’t.”

“I stopped. When I learned what it meant—I didn’t want to call you that.”

He blushed a little, a faint thing that almost could be explained by the chill in the air, but his eyes had softened and shone, as if the knowledge that she chose to stop simply to spare his feelings was more pleasing to him than the idea that she had simply never spoken the word. “Do you know how many voices I can hear the word ‘bastard’ in?”

“Jon—"

“Countless. Everyone I have loved. Everyone who has loved me. Robb, Bran, fa—”

“Don’t.”

He looked at her with burning eyes, brilliant with feelings she had seen before, until he stopped, remembered himself, pulled away. But now he was filled with it, overwhelmed with a gift she had given without understanding the consequence of it. “I never wanted you to even think it of me.”

“You don’t have to say anymore.”

But he was lost to her, unfolding memory after memory, staring at the ripples in the water, not heeding, not even hearing her words, “I thought it better you think me a fool—a good man but a fool—than you know the truth.”

“You wanted to save me, save us all. I don’t care about the rest.”

“I never betrayed you, I couldn’t. I only—"

“You saved the North, our family. You saved Westeros. Leave the rest.”

“You don’t—”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Is it wrong to want to be wanted? To want to believe, to hope that she is who she believed herself to be?”

Sansa shook her head, for she had been caressed by monsters too, felt their lips on hers, listened to their words, and believed it was love, until she felt kinder lips, until she heard softer words, until she knew it wasn’t.

“I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t know why I—I told myself she was different, and I wanted to love her because I had to give myself—it made it less vile, didn’t it? If I loved her? If I wasn’t using her—but I was, from the beginning. I wanted the dragons, and I never cared who sat the throne. I needed her armies, and I cared nothing for the South. All along I wondered where it would end, and now—I never once imagined a life together. I thought we would die, and what did it matter if first—”

His words were falling too fast, coming too quickly for him to stop himself. It was not the measured honesty of before, this was his collection, his trove of wrongs. He horded them, carried them with him, stuffed them into his pockets, never intending to let any spill, but Sansa had pulled at the threads one too many times, and they cascaded from his keeping. “I think I knew all along. If I didn’t know I would have been surprised. She threatened you, and I wasn’t surprised. The city burned, and I wasn’t surprised. I killed her, and I wasn’t surprised. I wept. What had I become?”

She gently placed her hands on his cheeks, turning him to her, “I wanted you to live. The rest of it—” She leaned forward, brushing her forehead with his. “You had to live.”

There was no absolving himself of wrongs; he had to live with them, endlessly, circling back in his mind to see what he could have done differently, and he wondered that Sansa had let go of the past, when she had been so greatly wronged. But she always had, hadn’t she? His treatment of her had not made her care less for him, any less loyal, and she pitied those who had nearly caused her death in riots as a girl. She had reached out a hand in friendship to the Hound, and there was no mistaking what kind of man he was. She had befriended Tyrion, even though he had taken her as his child bride. She had fed the dragons and queen’s armies, had endured the queen herself, although she had taken everything that Sansa loved from her. No, her words were not surprising to him at all, although he had desperately needed to hear them.

A tear escaped him, maybe several, trailing down his cheek, staining Sansa’s fine gloves.

“I wanted to die. I wanted to give in and stop existing.” He kept his eyes closed as he made another confession, “I would have been happier dying without you knowing. You living was all that mattered. I stood by her side through it all. I thought it would keep you safe.” He was shaking, offering what he had thought to never express, but Sansa did not pull away. Her fingers sunk into his hair, turning his head down until she could place a soft kiss on his forehead, dropped another to his cheek.

“I wanted to die too,” she said. “So many times. When father died, when mother and Robb died, when I still thought I would have to marry Joffrey, when they married me to Tyrion, when I was married to Ramsay. Each time I was beaten, raped, hurt so often I didn’t know what it was to not be in pain.” Her words, both their lives.

A deep shuddering breath, his, hers.

She was crying too.

Every Sansa he had known blurred together. The queen and the girl, the stranger and his family, his irritation and comfort, challenger and supporter. His defender, even when he refused to acknowledge the danger. He had never known what to call this, call her. It had been so long since he’d allowed himself to be seen, since he allowed himself to see. Trusting and being trusted was a branch too fragile to last, so he’d waited for it to break with each trial, for her to snap and pull away, but instead, she held him, again, again, _again_. Each time, choosing to care for him still. 

“I felt the same as you, that not existing was the only thing I could hope for, but I found you. And then the best I could hope for was surviving, and you living. That was all I wanted.” She said the words to him, to the Heart Tree, to Winterfell, to the boy who shouldn’t have been born, the man who shouldn’t have lived, the ghost who had forgotten how.

Her arms were around his shoulders, pulling him to her as she always did. “I know that it can’t seem worth it, having seen what you’ve seen, done what you’ve done, but thank you. Thank you for living anyway.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was heavier than I intended, but when writing the conversation, I felt like it was all true for this interpretation of the characters. Also, I know in the show Sansa said that Jon was a bastard in s6, but in the books she avoided using the term after she learned what it meant, so I went with that version. 
> 
> I’m aiming for a lighter (flirtier!) ch6, and to wrap it all up in ch7. Thank you so much for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

That night, Sansa and Jon ate silently. It was strange for silence to mean ease, comfort, for there to be no desperate need for him to fight, to defend others or himself. All of his wars were won. All that was left was peace.

He did not know what a man did with peace.

The silence, he reveled in the silence. It didn’t follow an argument, precede an accusation, and as if it was of short supply, he sought out Sansa, joined her routine, never to interfere, merely to admire. She listened to her subjects, she discussed matters with her Lords, she wrote or dictated ravens to the other kingdoms, haggling over goods. The North had lumber, and it was needed desperately to rebuild Westeros, as well as by the Braavosi, who had always purchased it. Sansa spoke of building more ports, wondered how they could find the men necessary for it all, as there was also the matter of mining stone, and deciding what to rebuild first. Jon listened, he watched, and inspite of, perhaps a little because of, Sansa’s exasperation with the mundane work, he enjoyed himself. He enjoyed himself too well to have anything to say at all, but he found himself speaking regardless. Not of his own accord, but sometimes Sansa would stop midsentence, “Well, what are you thinking?”

Jon _never_ said what he was thinking. Those thoughts were entirely inappropriate. He cleared his throat, redirected his thoughts, offered a suggestion that was invariably met with a nod, and then Sansa would return to her work. Sometimes he thought it would make no difference if he said anything or not, but he told himself not to regret it, not to regret any of it, not to be envious that some are born to greatness, that some are born to fail.

In the evenings they sat in her solar while she thumbed through ledgers or ravens and he read. Ghost often retreated to a corner until Nèvè chose her place, occasionally sprawled across Sansa’s table, but more often than not, snuggled next to Jon. If he allowed, she draped herself over his lap, purring deeply as if taking a particular delight in the thought that she annoyed him. And then Ghost would rise, gently shake himself, and lay across Sansa’s feet, or sit with his chin resting on her knee. It disconcerted Jon each time, to see the beast adore her so. He shifted, furiously cursed the heat in his cheeks, and hissed when Nèvè sunk her claws into his thigh, reprimanding him for disturbing her slumber. He glanced at Sansa, but she worked on, her hand resting on Ghost’s head.

Their evenings were quiet, their days were full, and he found pleasure in it, all the moments that he could breathe freely, no fear of what would follow.

Sansa had no officially appointed personal protection, so he insisted on accompanying her to Wintertown himself, and what was once so sparsely populated except in winter, had a pleasant hum of life around it. To his surprise, she settled herself in the back of a wagon, rather than in a wheelhouse, and he forced himself not to question it, as he meant to join, not disrupt. He rode alongside the wagon, and was amused that even in her unremarkable dress, she was clearly too refined for such a thing. Her hands folded neatly in her lap, her ankles crossed demurely, gave her away. But, if one weren’t to look as closely, perhaps she could be mistaken for a farmer’s wife, a fisherman’s daughter, someone who mattered only to those who loved her, unimportant, safe. Would she have been so lucky.

When they reached the home for children who had been left with nothing by the war, they descended on her as if she was theirs, and they hers, and from her perch she gave out treats, nuts, small rolls of bread from her own kitchen. The larger parcels of food were distributed by others, and as her wagon emptied, a child, then several, clambered up to join Sansa. Little girls touched her braids, asked for their own, a boy asked that he might join the royal guard, although, there as yet was no such thing.

She might have denied her desire for children before, but there was no denying her smile, the sudden moisture in her eyes when a girl with brown eyes and dark hair sat in her lap uninvited and announced that _she_ would be a fine guard as well. The queen hugged the girl so fiercely, Jon wondered if she thought she might reclaim a ghost in doing so.

The only time Jon balked at Sansa’s choices was when she left the children and headed to the brothel. He was so shocked he stammered out objections incoherently, amusing Sansa greatly, “I’ve been coming here for years, Jon.”

He wanted to strangle himself for the images _that_ statement conjured. Before he could collect himself and form an argument, Sansa had moved inside, only to be welcomed with a great deal more familiarity than was appropriate. He must have muttered the last.

“It is too appropriate.” Sansa tilted her head in the direction of her female companions, her pretense of respectability. “Now be quiet or you’ll offend the ladies.”

He considered picking Sansa up and forcefully removing her. But, it was true, she had brought two ladies along. They giggled when Jon looked at them, so he didn’t, but then he found himself staring at women who wore far less to hide their attributes, and that was worse, so much worse. Sansa ignored his unease, sat at a table, and drank the tea offered her in a very used cup, something even Jon was not brave enough to risk. 

Instead of riding alongside the wagon on their way back, Jon sat beside her, feet dangling over the rough road as they jostled their way to Winterfell. He could almost hear Sansa make note of the needed repairs. 

“You’re displeased I know a madame.”

“Your father would have never allowed—it isn’t befitting a lady, certainly not a queen.”

“I’ll not be a queen who knows only what I’m told. I want my presence felt everywhere, and it won’t be unless I know about their lives, unless they know I care.”

“There are other ways to— _it’s a_ _brothel_.”

“If Baelish was willing to give me to Ramsay, what must have befallen the other women in his keeping?”

He understood, wished he didn’t. She didn’t look at him, and he wasn’t sure that he should touch her now, so he placed his hand just behind her on the bed of the wagon, a loose embrace. She leaned into him, but only a little.

“You shouldn’t have to think about it. Appoint someone to do this for you,” his voice low and gentle.

Her head bent towards him, just barely brushing his shoulder, a light touch, yet still heavy, “No. I can do it. I want to.”

* * *

Sometimes when he tired of reading in the evening, he wandered around her solar, looked over materials on her table. He unrolled a map of the North, ran his fingers across the remnants of faded sigils, stopping on those she had no doubt repainted herself, as if she could touch the North itself and make it beautiful under her hand.

He placed his own hand over Winterfell, over the direwolf that had ruled for thousands of years, and now ruled again, and he glanced over at Ghost, who rested his head against Sansa’s leg, eyes closed as she scratched his ear, in the moment, the great beast was less intimidating than her cat, who glowered at him for abandoning her. He wondered if the North had been as quick to adopt her as the silent creature was. Did it take a week or a year for them to love her, or did they love her instantly, fiercely, love her without knowing, time not necessary to create their love, merely essential to reveal it.

Sometimes, when the mood struck, he hunted, finding enjoyment in it that he never thought to experience again. Often, it was just Ghost and himself, gone for several days at a time, returning with the deep quiet of the woods stored away to comfort him when the noise of Winterfell grew to be too great. On occasion, he was one of many hunters, and it was not respite, but work, for they were always in need of food. Sansa never seemed disturbed by his absence, a smile, a wish for success, before she turned back to her work. But when he returned, she unfailingly was in the courtyard, happy, so very happy. He could see it in her eyes, the flush on her cheek, feel it in how tightly she held him as if to assure herself that he had come home, that he would, always.

He wondered that she did not continue to ask him for more, to oversee training, to visit Lords in her name, return to the Wall or beyond as her emissary. But other than her initial invitation to work, and her request for his opinion, she asked for nothing. Sometimes, he wondered that she bothered to speak to him about any of it at all. But the wondering did not pain him, no bitterness lingered on his tongue.

He spoke, she listened, and he waited, eager to listen too.

* * *

“Is Ghost with you?” he asked, hand braced on the doorframe.

The warm weather meant Sansa had left her window open, and Nèvè and Ghost both lay in a pool of sunlight on her solar floor. The door had been open as well, a luxury in a drafty castle, but she hadn’t wanted to interrupt her work when the animals chose to abandon her. She looked at Jon’s relaxed stance, “How long have you been standing there?”

“Not long” with a grin.

_Liar_.

“I’m going riding, thought I’d take Ghost to the woods.”

“Aren’t you going to invite me?” She hadn’t intended to leave her work, but nothing made Jon smile like being teased, and she did love to see him smile.

Jon obliged her, a slow grin as he searched for a response. He looked out the window, back to her, made a show of dragging his eyes to the window again. “You would waste daylight by venturing out into it rather than staying locked away in your solar? Does Lord Glover know that sometimes you aren’t awaiting his ravens full of new complaints?”

Sansa smirked, “Does Alys know you’ve taken to hiding in your room to avoid her?”

Jon blushed, rumpled his hair which he hadn’t bothered to tie back, “I didn’t think anyone would notice.”

“I’m sure I’m the only one. Your dour face tends to blend in so well with the walls no one can say for certain if you were absent or silently standing in the corner.”

“I’m not always dour.”

Sansa laughed, shook her head as she closed her ledger, placed it on a stack over other bound books, rested her elbow on the table, her chin in her hand, to gaze at him. “No, not always.”

Jon hesitated a moment, then stepped through the doorway, “If you’re not too busy, I wonder if you’d like to join Ghost and myself.”

Her cheeks flushed, but she managed to reply, “I’m not too busy.”

She’d never been fond of riding as far as he could recall, so he expected her horse to be a gentle mare, perhaps a gelding, certainly not a stallion, who sidestepped and tossed his head as the stable boy tried to stave off his impatience while waiting for the queen.

He understood a little better when Sansa emerged, and the great horse’s hooves stilled their prancing, and his neck curved down for her arm to slide around it.

Jon resisted the urge to roll his eyes. _Of course_ she charmed a horse as easily as she’d won over his direwolf. She scratched the stallion’s chin as he huffed, whispering into his mane, “I know. You are in great need of exercise, my lord.”

Somehow, Jon managed to swallow his laugh. She’d named her direwolf Lady, _of course_ she would address her horse with courtesy.

She mounted easily, before he could offer assistance, and her mount’s eagerness was no difficulty for her to manage. A few pats, more murmured words, and his liveness become a snort, a twitching tail, but no disruption to their ride.

Her seat had improved, since the last time they’d ridden together. But then, she had been in pain when they rode from Castle Black. She’d been in pain for weeks as they traveled the North, not that she spoke of it, not to him. And then they had been rejected by house after house, and they had argued with each other, and it was winter, and even with the disappointment, even with the fear, she hadn’t said a word. He had seen flashes of pain, a grimace, a tear in her eye, but never heard a complaint.

“Do you often ride?” It was a strange thing, to ask such a question of a woman who he’d gone to war for, a woman he’d ruled with, a woman he’d left in charge of his kingdom, a woman he’d relied on, left, returned to. It felt like a thing he ought to know, but how would he? How would he know unless he asked.

“Not as often as he would like.”

“Dare I ask his name?”

“You may, but I may not tell you. I have no wish to be teased.”

“I would never,” but his smiled said otherwise.

“Petal.”

“I like it.”

“No you don’t. When he was a foal I went to visit him, and I had just been to the glass gardens, I’d picked the first rose. We had planted only one rose bush as we needed as much space as possible to plant vegetables. I wasn’t paying attention, and he ate it. The whole thing. I couldn’t name him rose—"

“Obviously,” with a grave tone.

“—so I named him Petal,” with a pointed look.

“I do like it. It’s very…easy to remember.”

“You’d remember Nèvè’s name if you didn’t convince yourself that she didn’t like you.”

“She _doesn’t_ like me.”

“No, she makes you uncomfortable. There’s a difference.”

“Are you still speaking of Nèvè?”

“I am. Aren’t you?”

Jon chose to stop speaking altogether. It was the safer option.

Hunting was a very different experience than riding with a lady. It was only Sansa he told himself, although he was acutely aware that there was no _only_ about it. They didn’t speak, Sansa, lost in her thoughts, Jon in his. The youngest trees gently swayed in the wind, bending over the path beaten into the earth, the older resisted, only the tips of the highest branches bending, even so, birds chirped their indignation at the gentle rise and fall of their homes.

Jon whistled, mimicking their call, poorly. Sansa smiled, pursed her lips, attempted to imitate, a sharp breath, no music issuing forth. He was relatively certain ladies didn’t whistle, but she licked her lips, tried again. Jon tucked his head and quietly chuckled at her futile sputtering.

A groom followed them, and Ghost padded nearby until they reached the woods, then Ghost fell behind, then darted ahead, then circled back, silently watching them from the foliage, his tail wagging in excitement. If he could, Jon imagined he would tell them they moved too fast, too slow, or were heading in the wrong direction.

To Jon’s surprise, Sansa pulled up. “Stay with the horses,” she told her groom.

“Are you following him? Sansa?”

Ghost darted off, much faster than she could move, but Sansa had stepped from the path and followed after the direwolf. Jon cursed before chasing after her. “You know he’s in a mood. He’ll want to lead us on for hours.”

“Why are you complaining? Oh, have you changed your mind about Alys?”

“Sansa.”

They came to a tree with low branches and Sansa pushed one aside as she ducked beneath the next to walk towards the trunk. “I could speak to her for you.”

Jon grabbed at the branch, preventing it from swinging back and hitting him in the face, “ _Sansa_.”

“Ow.” 

He had to duck under a few more branches before he was beside her, exasperated that she was caught, her hair held firmly in place by the branch entangled in it. He immediately reached out to help, although he couldn’t help but say, “Perhaps this is a sign.”

“That I shouldn’t meddle?”

Sansa continued to try to disentangle herself until he pushed her hand away, “I’ll do it.”

She reached back once more, but Jon caught her hand, “Sansa, let me help.”

Sansa retracted her hand, smoothed it down her skirts.

She’d changed from her winter garb recently, no more black and grey wool, stiff leather, or heavy furs. Instead she wore muted colors. Blue, like a deep lake. Purple, like a dried flower. Green, like an ancient tree hidden in the heart of a wood. The material was so light, he could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest. His own followed suit. He dropped her braid over her shoulder, pulled the red strands from around the branch, noticed goosebumps on the nape of her neck, refocused his eyes, finished his task quickly. He turned her towards him, excruciatingly aware of how very thin the material of her dress was, of his hands on her arms.

“Are you blushing, Jon?”

He shook his head although he was, “Don’t tease me about her.”

She searched him for understanding, and he could only look into her eyes, so wide, so kind, so very blue. His hands were still on her. He did not pull away.

He thought of her primness, her courtesies, how he’d seen them momentarily forgotten when she was comfortable, when she wasn’t minding herself. He saw her rubbing her head against Ghost like a wolf, her flushed cheeks as she rode her stallion instead of a dainty mare, her failure to whistle. “Have you ever climbed a tree?” The words spoken before he could stop himself.

“What?”

He led her to the base of their shelter, nodded at a knot protruding near the ground, a low branch, “I think even a queen can climb this.”

“I am a lady!” There was no feigned indignation, Sansa was genuinely shocked.

“The worst that can happen is that you fall a foot or two.”

“I’ve never climbed a tree in my life.”

“Aye, I suspected that, but do you want to?”

“It’s hardly appropriate.”

“ _Very_ inappropriate. Do you want to?”

She bit her lip to keep from smiling, so he pulled her gently forward.

“What do I do?”

“I think it’s rather self-explanatory. To climb a tree, you climb it.” He assumed it was the fresh air, not the way Sansa clung to his hand that made him cheeky.

“Maybe you need to go back to being a sullen ass.”

He gasped, “I thought you were _a lady_.”

Jon didn’t think she deliberately kicked him as she hoisted herself up onto the branch, but he wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t.

With one arm wrapped around the trunk as securely as she could manage, backside resting on the limb, Sansa still managed to sit daintily. She tugged at her skirt until it fell into place, “That wasn’t so hard.”

The branch was low enough that he could rest his elbows on it comfortably, which he did, facing away from Sansa, so she could not see his grin, fortunately for him. “Very handily done, for a lady.”

The breeze carried Sansa’s laugh away, into the leaves and branches above them, into the sunlight filtering through, into the new green grass emerging because it was at last, Spring.

Jon could almost hear the instructions they’d given to Bran while they hunted, could feel Robb’s hand on his shoulder as they tried to suppress their laughter when he’d miss his target. His eyes closed as he thought of their hunts when he was that age, his uncle’s guidance when he’d been that young, the warmth in his grey eyes as he’d ruffled Jon’s hair when Jon had missed his mark.

At first, he thought it was the breeze that gently moved his curls, but it was Sansa, her thin fingers twirling a wayward lock. “I always wanted curly hair,” she confessed.

He hid his smile in his arms, expecting her to relinquish him, but she didn’t. She kept smoothing his unruly curls with a soft touch, lulling Jon into silence. His head lolled to the side, resting against her thigh, and he wondered if he should move away, but Sansa’s fingers didn’t hesitate, instead they sank deeper into his curls.

“What would your life have been, had you known?”

Jon hadn’t spared a thought to a possible future before, too mired in his own. “I wouldn’t have had a life. Robert Baratheon would have—”

“If your father had won.”

“I was never meant to be heir. I had an older brother.”

“And a sister.”

“Aye.” His eye didn’t twitch, although he felt the telltale tightening in his throat. “Whichever family I claim, it suffered its own tragedies. My grandfather killed my grandfather and uncle, my uncle went to war against my father, my father’s decisions allowed my half-siblings to be butchered, and my mother…he left her alone to die in a tower.”

The hand stopped stroking his hair, slid down his cheek, under his chin, gently asking him to look at her, and he did, though he felt the rage and shame return to him, he did. He allowed her to see.

Ever so softly, “Bran says he loved her.”

“A love like that is worthless.”

“A love that saves a woman from an unwanted marriage? A love that makes a man go to war for her? A love that a man would die for?”

Staring into her eyes, he was a man at sea, the emotions so furiously struggling within him forgotten on the shore. There was no anger, only love, and her fingers, so cool, so soothing before, now burned his skin.

She smiled, as if he were a boy who had yet to understand, “Who would want a love like that?”

Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright, and while his staring had caused her to still, her eyes demanded something from him.

His hands moved to hold her hips of their own accord, and his mouth opened—

“There’s a bee.” Quietly, and then her eyes widened as she realized what she’d said, “Bee!” Sansa half fell, half jumped into his arms, and he staggered trying to _not_ fall, as his brain struggled to understand her shrieks. She jerked away from him, dodging as a rather fat bee, buzzed happily around her head.

His mistake was trying to reason with her. “Sansa, you defied a woman who had dragons, you looked Ramsay in the eye and told him you would have his blood, you killed a wight—”

She forcefully planted him between the bee and herself as if that would make any difference. “I don’t care,” she hissed, “I _hate_ bees.”

“Are you using me as a shield?” laughing.

“Noooo,” clearly meaning yes.

Jon shook his head and stepped away only for Sansa to grab him with more force than he’d thought her capable of, “Don’t move!”

The bee had flown away, disappearing into the young leaves above them, and Jon wondered. He gently removed himself from Sansa’s hands, walked over, stepped up on the low knot Sansa has used to climb the tree, and pulled himself up into the foliage.

“What are you doing?” Sansa called from below.

Only a few branches up into the tree, he saw it, a beehive.

“You may want to walk back to the path.”

“Why?”

He pulled his knife from his waist. His sword he’d left on his horse, not that he’d have wanted to abuse it this way. The branch wasn’t thick, but he wanted to be careful, slow, as to not disturb the bees too egregiously. He began to saw.

“What are you doing?” Sansa called from down below.

“I’m getting us some honey.”

* * *

“Where did you learn how to do that?”

Sansa sat demurely in the grass, having opted to disregard his warning, and Jon shook his head at the sight of her. _Of course_ the sun had chosen a place just for her to sit, the wildflowers no doubt bloomed as soon as she settled, and the one that lay in her lap had likely climbed there itself. Jon knew before he peeled his jerkin away from the beehive that those few bees that hadn’t yet escaped, wouldn’t dare disturb her.

“I had to survive in the North somehow.”

“But how did you _learn_?”

“Maybe I didn’t know how, maybe I figured it out.”

“Has that ever worked for you?”

He rolled his eyes, but smiled, “When I was boy, on our hunting trips, sometimes we’d shimmy up a tree when we saw a hornet nest”

“Why?”

“Well, it wasn’t to offer each other honey.”

“Boys are dreadful.”

“Aye,” a laugh at her wrinkled nose, “We were.”

“A Jon who teases and a Jon who talks to bees.”

Jon grinned, Sansa would have described it as boyish, but she’d never seen him smile that way before. “I didn’t do much talking.”

“Shouldn’t we take it back to Winterfell? Let cook use it to make something?”

“Cook will have her honey. But first, the queen shall have hers.” He sliced off a piece of honeycomb, and offered it, sucking several drops from his own thumb.

Sansa delicately dabbed at it, as if to verify what it was. Jon shook his head, bemused, took her hand, cradling it in his calloused paw, holding the small portion of honeycomb above hers, crushed it, until a golden pool of honey lay in her palm.

“It’s been a long time since we had sweets.” A delicate finger twirled in the honey, popped into her mouth, and she laughed softly to herself. “A _very_ long time.”

To the end of his days Jon Snow would remember the moment that Sansa Stark forgot all pretense and licked every last drop of honey from her palm.

He scratched his beard, looked at his feet, squinted at the sun that was entirely too warm, forbid himself from gawking.

“I’ve always loved sweet things” Sansa admitted, trying to hold her hand beyond Ghost’s inquisitive nose. He’d returned with impeccable timing, always knowing when Sansa had something edible in hand.

“Lemon cakes, wasn’t it?”

She looked at him, surprised, “You remember that?”

The breeze lifted several strands of hair from her cheek, blew them across her face, and he wanted to touch her, to run his fingers through her hair. Instead he looked away again, “Childhood wasn’t _that_ long ago, was it?”

“It feels like it to me.”

She still smiled, he couldn’t even discern regret in her tone, and she rubbed her head against Ghost’s absentmindedly, the direwolf taking advantage of her distraction to lick her hand.

When had Sansa ever been a child? He rifled through his memories, tried to find one, failed. She’d been a lady even when she was so young she should have been tripping over her skirts, so young she still spoke with a lisp, so young that the rest of them climbed and screamed and fought, but not Sansa. She sat with folded hands, unwrinkled clothes, obediently, quietly, perfect.

Young, she was still young. They both were. And she was a queen, with even more demands, greater need of perfection, even so, she ruled with the poise she’d always possessed. He burned with the knowledge that only with him did she allow herself to be a little less flawless, that she entrusted herself to him in ways she never gave herself to anyone else. And he thought, perhaps she had been telling him many things, the important thing, all along. She smiled and laughed but only with him.

Sansa sang many songs, each one fit for the occasion, but his favorite was when something he said surprised her into laughing. His favorite was her delight in teasing him, although it unfailingly made him blush. His favorite was how she wanted his opinion, even if she couldn’t agree. His favorite was her confession, that despair was not his alone. His favorite was her smile as she perched on a tree limb, hand in his hair. His favorite was the sound of her summoning memories with her harp, ushering them away. His favorite was the sight of her, licking honey from her hand. His favorite was her head on his shoulder, weary from all her care.

Maybe this is what a man did with peace; he savored it.

“We should go back” Sansa said, ever dutiful.

“Aye, see what sweets cook can make with this honey.” He offered his hand to help her to her feet, but Sansa scrunched her nose, held up her palms, “Mine are sticky.”

He laughed, spread his fingers for her inspection, “Mine too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right before I posted I was trying to remember why honey/bees were on my mind in relation to Jonsa, and I think it must be because I've been reading @stormcloudrising 's awesome metas on tumblr about all the connections Sansa has with honey/bees and how that ties into her parallels with Persephone. And of course, there is always "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" song which may or may not have been lurking in the back of my mind. 
> 
> And yes, I did knowingly choose to Disney-fy Sansa in Jon's eyes for a paragraph. I thought it was cute! 
> 
> Also, I don't know what to make of the L/R situation, the varying accounts, and I don't want to ignore the deeply troubling aspects of it, but at the same time, I think Sansa would try to see something beautiful in it for Jon's sake.
> 
> Hopefully, I won't take so long for the last chapter. I am ready for our happy ending!

**Author's Note:**

> I've already written a post s8 fic, but I'm addicted to getting a happy ending for these two, so here I am again. Thank you for reading!


End file.
